Harry Potter, Polar Express, and Burton's Chocolate Factory all IMAX bound (1 Viewer)

[Sean Laughter]

I don't know if any of this news, or parts of it, is old or not, but the next Harry Potter is scheduled for an IMAX release next year, as well as Polar Express. Polar Express is going to be a 3D release though, which I'd assume essentially means they're having to render the movie twice just for the IMAX release!!

Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is also supposed to get an IMAX release as well (that will be 2005 I think).

Unlike the ROTK release everyone is seeing (which is just 35mm prints played on an IMAX screen) these are actually going to get the DMR transfer over to actual IMAX stock.

Obviously, running times for these movies haven't been hammered down yet, so there isn't really any way of knowing how cuts will be made (if they need to be made) to each so that they fit within the IMAX running time limit.

 

[Chris Woodard]

Concerning running times;

I was under the impression that an Imax over 120 minutes was not possible and for films longer than that undergoing the DMR transfer, that certain scenes would be cut (as was the case for Episode II).

However, when I saw Matrix Reloaded Imax, the entire film was there. Which has a running time of around 138 minutes. How does that work?

Of the three I'm most interested in seeing the Polar Express. Mostly since we can assume that with Robert Zemeckis directing a total CG film, there will be some absolutely insane camera work that will hopefully be utterly overwhelming in Imax.

 

[ThomasC]

They were able to push the limit to 150 minutes before Reloaded was released.

 

[Sean Laughter]

Yes, depending on how a theater is equipped (I'd imagine it's purely a reel unit issue) the two highest upper limits are either 2hrs or 2.5hrs now.

If a theater wants to show a 2.5hr print and is only equipped for a 2hr (or is still running reel systems that only accepts 50 min. films) I'm not sure how the economics of that will work. When Fantasia2000 was released I believe any theater that wanted a reel unit upgrade to show it was able to get one at IMAX expense, but I'm not sure if that would be possible nowadays because Fantasia was the first film of its kind like that (there was an old Rolling Stones film that was really long too, but it was shown with an intermission), and it was probably offered to aid in market penetration (I'm not sure if Disney helped offset some of IMAX's costs for the reel units or not).

 

[JohnAP]

Sounds cool. Too bad the only Imax in my area won't show any Hollywood films. Only educational ones.